The Gods of Loss
by sh0rtcake
Summary: My puny collection of tinted Bleach snapshots. Mostly brimming with love and the different forms of love and other random stuff. Just starting out, mind you.
1. Not for Me

_**Author Notes: This one is set when Byakuya and Renji go in the human realm to claim Rukia.**_

_**Characters: Byakuya, Renji, Rukia, Ichigo**_

_**Seen from Byakuya's POV.**_

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**Not for Me**

The blood welled up like crushed rose petals and spurted from his body. It was as if in a dream. All I remembered was seeing the way he protected Rukia, feeling the anger and jealousy that boiled in my throat and tightened in my chest.

My body had moved on its own, performing Shunpo and slipping up next to him, my sword piercing into his chest, watching with satisfaction the look of shock and horror that had passed over his arrogant face.

"Even when you fall, it's an ugly and clumsy sight." I stepped away from his falling body as he crashed onto the ground, unconscious and badly injured.

From behind, I heard her shout, "Byakuya nii-sama!"

I turned, just in time to catch her delicate white face juxtaposed in an expression of fear and concern, her beautiful eyes contorted in pain and trepidation. For that little brat. A sour and painful emotion welled up in my chest and stole away my voice.

"Ichigo!" she yelled as she struggled against Renji's grip to get to the lifeless heap. "Let go of me, you big ape!"

_He cannot protect you. _I watched her silently.

She never belonged to me. This feisty tiny little slip of a girl with silk-black hair and big midnight eyes, a challenging smile and a sarcastic word for everyone.

Not even when I went through hell and high water, moving heaven and earth as best as I humanly could to get her adopted into the clan, risking expulsion from the Kuchiki clan and even giving up my pride to beg for them to sign the adoption papers.

Even when she stayed in the Kuchiki house, I watched her wistful expression when Renji came to train in my private quarters and I saw the longing scudding in her eyes as she brought him tea and snacks. Then I watched as she got accepted into the 12th squad and saw how much she admired and respected Shiba Kaien.

Then he died by her sword, carving a hole into her life forever, taking a part of her away with him into Hell.

Now that she was in the human realm, I saw the way she cared for that orange-haired brat, saw how she squabbled delightfully with him, saw how she protected him from the Hollows even when she had nothing but a useless gigai. Not once had I crossed her mind. To her, I was still Kuchiki Byakuya-nii-sama, someone to be feared and held in deep respect. I longed to hold her the way that orange-haired brat had, tenderly and asking nothing in return.

"Rukia, we have to go." I heard Renji spit.

She bent down gently and smoothed the orange strands splattered with blood out of his face. A small smile crept quietly onto her face as she felt his heart beat under her palms. He was safe and that was all that mattered.

A smile that would never belong to me. A smile that was not for me.

I roughly grabbed her by the arm as Renji opened the door to Soul Society and we walked in. Back home.

_Back to a place where her smiles, her laughter and her teasing voice would never be for me._

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	2. Passing Shadows

**Author's Notes: Thanks for all reviews and the delish cookies! This is set after Byakuya and Renji take Rukia back to Soul Society. Angst Alert: This was conceived after sitting through a rather sappy Korean love drama.**

**Characters: Ichigo, Rukia and a teensy bit of Ishida**

**Seen from Ichigo's POV. _This is the proper version._**

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**Passing Shadows**

Yesterday, at approximately 10.15pm in the night, it has been exactly four months, sixteen days, eleven hours, twenty minutes and fifteen seconds since Rukia came into my house and crashed into my life. I try my best to keep track because I have never experienced a force such as she is. She is larger than life, she is irritating and she is Rukia. I try to label our relationship, keep it neat and stow it away tidily, as orderly as I can be.

Something as simple and clean as a relationship and I'm failing. Failing horribly.

If Ishida could see me now, he would have a good laugh.

I know my feelings for her. They are twisted and dishevelled, entwined and awry, a mess that sneaks into my heart and my head when I am not watching them closely. Yet, I can clearly and objectively separate them into a few.

I care for her. I worry for her. I'm annoyed with her. I love her. I sometimes desire her. Especially when she forgets to close the bathroom door when she bathes. I hate it when she does that because she knows how much it gets to me.

That is what scares me.

That a tiny Death God in my sister's old clothing who barely comes up to my chest can evoke such strong and intoxicating emotions in me. Frankly, it scares the hell outta me. How can she make me feel this way? I remember each and every single bit of her.

In fact, I catalogue every _single_ word she's ever said to me.

"_Ichigo. Get me a drink." _

"_Ichigo, get your ass over here." _

"_Ichigo! Are you injured?"_

_"Ichigo, get out of the way! I'll handle this."_

It strikes me how every sentence starts with my name.

She is domineering and random. She leaves her clothes all over the floor for me to pick up after her. She constantly drips jelly on my clothes when she eats in the closet. And she never, ever fails to irritate me by doodling Chappy rabbits on my textbooks. Sometimes, she jerks me around by threatening to tell Ishida I envy his sewing skills.

It is empty without her. The room suddenly seems too quiet and too alone. Nothing is right and I can't seem to make it work out the way it was before she gatecrashed my life and demanded my closet as her bedroom. I realise that all the memories I have accumulated over fifteen years cannot compare to the four months that she spent here with me.

Everything that she has touched has changed and I _cannot _see the world the same way again.

I can't even hang out with my friends anymore because I can't drink from a packet of juice and not think of her, because I can't walk into the arcade and bear being next to a girl carrying a stuffed rabbit toy, because I can't talk to them about Rukia since they don't even remember her.

And now they look at me weirdly with a hurt expression on their faces because I am so far away.

Yet I can't stop myself. It is an emptiness that gnaws through my throat right down to the pit of my heart and it keeps on growing and growing. I can't even sleep properly in my room because I can still smell her scent and hear the soft sounds she makes every night turning and tossing inside the closet.

I wonder if she dreams about sleeping in a closet in Soul Society. Occasionally, I wonder if she hates me and I realise I would feel less guilty if she does.

It has come to this that I am halved without her. There is no Ichigo without Rukia. It is no longer 'me' but only a 'us', an 'us' that was ripped apart by two Death Gods coming under the cover of night.

Pain feels like this.

It has been fifteen days, ten hours, twenty minutes and forty seconds since Rukia left. Left without saying a word, left without saying goodbye, left with shattered rain streaking down her cheeks. I was protected till the end and that eats at me. Every single day.

That I never got to save her. That I let them take her away the same way I let that Hollow slide its sword into her.

Forty-one seconds…

Now I sleep with the sound of blood trickling down into drains and awake with her screaming in my head.

Forty-two…

With the awful realisation that I sent her to her death.

Forty-three...

Were we just passing shadows in each other's lives?

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End file.
